- ポテトパーティー | Potato Party
Jianjia, Sol, some teachers and I went to an izakaya (芋蔵) that served mostly potato foods. The potato strips dipped in honey and mayonnaise were especially good. They also had a huge selection of shochu with flavors such as coffee, lime, grape, and my favorite (but didn’t have the guts to try) – wasabi.
- ジアンジア＆ソル | Jianjia & Sol
I wanted to get some photos of my friends Jianjia and Sol before they left Japan and move to San Francisco, but nothing was really working out for me. Initially, I intended on bringing my studio strobe with a beauty dish and battery pack, but when checking my equipment the night before, I found the battery to be completely dead. Glad I checked. I decided to make do with my speedlights, and brought two SB600s and two SB800s. When we got there, it was already dark. I had been hoping to catch a little bit of evening light, but that just wasn’t in the cards. The darkness made focusing and composing a bit difficult, but somehow it worked out. I set up one of the SB800s camera right with a red gel, and put two SB600s on a stand with a large umbrella. The wind was so strong that no amount of weighing it down would keep it up, so after about 20 minutes of suffering in the cold and dark underneath a bridge, we decided to cut our losses, call it a day, and head down to Yama-chan for some warm food and drink.
- GoPro HD: The Snowboard Movie
GoPro made a snowboard version of their promo.
Two more weeks until Hokkaido…
- 今年の抱負 | Resolutions for the New Year
Usually when I make resolutions, I fail to follow through. I’m not sure if I make them too grand or just don’t break them down enough to be attainable, but this year I’ll give it a shot and see what happens. These are not my daily routine or job-related resolutions (I have those, too, but I won’t bore you with them), but more in the realm of art/photography.
-To draw and paint more. When I was younger, my dream was to be an illustrator. However, I quickly realized that it just wasn’t in the cards for me, and besides that, had a natural gravitation to photography anyway. I still have a passion for drawing, though, even though I lack the ability. I think drawing also helps photography in a way because it helps to build composition in your mind and to visualize better.
To realize this goal: take 2 or 3 days out of the month to sit down and people watch/draw. Drawing from the imagination is acceptable, but I want to work on the basics first. I’d like to do some mixed media stuff eventually.-Shoot more film. I haven’t been shooting film as much because it’s yet another cost at the end of the month, but it’s really nice every now and then because it forces you to (as with drawing) focus on composition more. With digital it’s easy to get into the habit of firing off shots and pulling the best from the batch, rather than really making every shot count. I also like the feeling of not knowing quite what you’re going to get. It’s like opening a birthday present.
To realize this goal: have a “film day” once a month.-Create a solid series. I tend to go through the day shooting things I see, but when I go through my photos when organizing or whatnot, I realize that there’s a lack of a thread to tie it all together. For example, if I were to have a show, I wouldn’t really have anything cohesive to show. Not that everything has to have that or that stand-alones are a no-no, but this year I really want to focus on getting one or two solid series going.
To realize this goal: brainstorm some unique series ideas and plan how to go about realizing the series. I’m not so interested in doing something ‘about Japan’ as I am in creating a series that just happens to be in Japan. One series that I’ve been thinking about is a day and night series. I’d like to show some interesting environments from the exact same place, one during the day, and one at night. I think Japan, in particular, happens to be great for this because there’s no way to escape all the light pollution and interesting activities going on at night. Figuring out how to get in the exact same position for both shots will be tricky though, as I don’t really have the will power to stick around all day waiting for the sun to go down. I’ll have to figure out some sort of marker system.That’s it for now. More to come if I think of them.
- OctoStickers
After getting back from Tokyo and seeing all the incredible stickers everywhere, I was inspired to make my own series. I pulled out my microns (that were all dried up after years of non-use) and got to work. I love octopodes so they were a natural choice. From left to right, top to bottom: Fluffy bunnies, ninja, Arakune, king, Day of the Dead, Japanese school girl. Each one is about 6″x6″ (15cm x 15cm).
One of the things that impressed me about a lot of the Tokyo stickers was that many of them were painstakingly hand-drawn even though there’s a very good chance that they’ll be ignored, ripped off right away, or covered. That, to me, is the essence of art. Art for art’s sake. It’s not about scrawling your name everywhere and destroying something just because you can (lame), it’s about interacting with your environment, and creating and sharing with the world. Real street art is so refreshing to see because it adds so much texture and character to cities that are increasingly getting taken over by bland chains.
- TomoTherapy: three60
I was recently asked by TomoTherapy to do a shoot at the Aichi Cancer Center of Dr. Kodaira and his team. They are the first to use a TomoTherapy machine in Japan, and TomoTherapy wanted to do an article for their magazine three60. The team at TomoTherapy were great, and Dr. Kodaira and his staff were very warm and accommodating. It couldn’t have gone smoother!
- 6ｘ6
Another repost. All of these were shot with a Minolta Autocord.
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- にっぽんど真ん中祭り | Domatsuri
A repost, because I didn’t want these to get lost in the sea of Flickr.
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- 東京で手彫り | Tebori in Tokyo
On the last day of my trip to Tokyo, Shawn got a tattoo from a local horimono tattoo artist, Bunshin Horitoshi. He uses a machine for the outline, but the rest is all traditional style tebori. Shawn left the tattoo design and colors up to Toshi, who had chosen a kirin (giraffe) beforehand. After much deliberation, Toshi decided on green with blue, yellow, and red accents.
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